To be honest, the situation on both sides is hard to describe.
Xia Jing casually recounted the entire process of how Ye Xiang blocked him in the second carriage and started looking for trouble.
The group of people were shocked that Ye Xiang still wanted to take revenge at this critical moment. They were even more shocked that Ye Xiang and several giant insect monsters, who were carrying monster props, only made the young man's clothes tattered, while the young man himself was not hurt at all.
——They only knew that this guy was smart, but they didn't expect that his strength was as awesome as Song Yang.
They were lucky to have entered the same dungeon with the two big guys!
"So all these bugs came out of the pipes?" After recovering, Li Mian lowered his head and looked at the clumps of slurry around him, his emotions relatively calm. "The noise Sister Yang heard in the second car was made by them, right? But what triggered their appearance?"
Speaking of this, Xia Jing turned to look at Yang Leliu, who was still huddled in the corner, a little dazed, and asked, "Did you hear any sound after Ma Qiu was transported out of the square pipe?"
Yang Leliu was stunned for a moment by Xia Jing's question, but she quickly remembered something and nodded quickly, "Yes! I did hear that rustling sound in the pipe again at that time, but everyone was arguing at the time, and I... maybe I wasn't paying attention, and I couldn't hear it after a while. I thought I was just hallucinating..."
Everyone recalled the past as Yang Leliu spoke.
Indeed, they were all shocked by Ma Qiu's death at the time, and several of them were arguing emotionally. It was normal that Yang Leliu had difficulty maintaining his attention.
After hearing this, Song Yang quickly found the key point: "Is it a corpse?"
Xia Jing said, "No, to be more precise, it should be enough to 'cut the skin and flesh'. Since we destroyed the pipe, as long as there is a smell of blood or meat outside the pipe, these insects should be attracted and come out. Ye Xiang was attacked by the insects probably because my blood was on his face at the time."
Song Yang frowned and asked, "Are you hurt?"
"Huh?" Xia Jing blinked, "Ah, I used the medical supplies in time."
"Your clothes must have been splashed with corrosive liquid..." Fei Shengxiao swallowed hard and finally found the strength to stand up with the help of the wall. Her voice was still weak as she murmured, "Fortunately, it only corroded my clothes. If that kind of stuff got on my skin, it would be terrible."
Xia Jing smiled and said, "Yes."
Unfortunately, no one had an extra coat to lend to Xia Jing, and his tattered clothes looked a bit funny.
Song Yang's gaze lingered on Xia Jing for a moment, then he looked away.
He asked again, "What about An Ruming?"
Fei Shengxiao: "An Ruming was standing guard at the door of the second carriage. I guess the bugs attacked him because he was blocking the way!"
Xia Jing shook his head: "No, there must be a reason why the bugs attacked him."
He pointed at Cheng Jiayu's corpse, which lay half a meter away from Fei Shengxiao and Yang Leliu, and said, "When the last two insects rushed out of the second carriage, their target wasn't you, but this corpse. This proves that ordinary humans can't attract them. If An Ruming had no injuries or blood on his body at the time, then there must have been other reasons for his attack."
After Xia Jing said this, Fei Shengxiao and Yang Leliu finally remembered something. They looked at each other and exclaimed at the same time, "That piece of paper!"
Sha Yu quickly asked, "What kind of paper?"
Song Yang's thoughts turned, and he walked back into the cab. He searched the door and picked up a piece of white paper lying on the ground. "You mean the paper the conductor gives you at every level?"
Xia Jing moved closer to take a look.
On this piece of white paper, it was written:
"Only passengers who meet the following conditions may open the door of the cab and enter the cab:
1. Male;
2. Over 40 years old.
Sha Yu was stunned and said, "Did the conductor change the candidate this time?"
Yang Leliu nodded quickly.
She originally thought that she would be the one to enter the driver's seat this time.
Unexpectedly, when I reloaded the game, other conditions remained unchanged, but the train conductor changed!
Yang Leliu knew that her husband was thirty years old, not to mention Song Yang, Xia Jing, and Wang Zhi, who were all young people. Ye Xiang looked to be in his early thirties.
Among the people present, the only one who met the conditions of being male and over 40 years old was An Ruming!
That's why she and Fei Shengxiao looked at the guy together at that time. They were also very surprised. What they didn't expect was that before they could say anything, An Ruming had been swallowed by the giant insect.
Xia Jing pondered, "Then besides 'skin and flesh being torn apart', another condition that can attract bugs to attack players is probably 'being chosen by the conductor'."
The young man pondered for another second and whispered, "The reason we were able to pass this round smoothly is probably not because the train conductor died, but because An Ruming was sacrificed."
The others were stunned.
Li Mian frowned and asked, "What do you mean? The chosen ones must be caught by the conductor, so that the rest of us can survive, right?"
But An Ruming was clearly eaten by the insect monster?
Xia Jing seemed to have suddenly become clear.
He didn't answer Li Mian's question right away. Instead, he pointed to the still intact head of a giant insect not far away and asked Song Yang, "You're a medical student. Can you recognize what kind of insect this is?"
Song Yang already had a guess in his mind at this moment.
He carefully examined the insect corpses there.
The insect was torn into pieces, making it difficult to imagine what it looked like when it was complete, but Song Yang was still able to identify it based on certain features.
He said slowly: "...It's roundworms."
Everyone was shocked.
Sha Yu was surprised and asked, "What?!"
roundworms?!
Is this the kind of parasitic roundworm that appears in the human intestine? !
Sha Yu wanted to ask something else, but he quickly thought of the train conductor's true appearance when he and Song Yang attacked him just now.
At that time, Sha Yu had not yet realized what that ultimate form meant, but at this moment, he connected all these clues together, shocking everyone to the point of being stunned.
Xia Jing turned around and finally pushed open the half-open door of the cab, seeing the whole scene inside.
The train conductor was lying on the operating platform, with serious injuries on his forehead, shoulders and chest. Large amounts of blood were sprayed around him, which was enough to prove how fierce the brief battle just now was.
besides....
Fei Shengxiao, Yang Leliu, Li Mian, and Wang Zhi, who finally had the strength to come over and took a trembling look, saw the conductor's body clearly and all gasped.
——The monster's body has been split into two.
——It was cracked all the way down from the center of the skull, as if it was split open by someone.
However, that could never be the masterpiece of Song Yang or Sha Yu.
Because the edge of the crack was smooth, there was no blood, only complete, mature skin and flesh tissue.
No organs can be seen inside the two halves of the body, only a blood-red inner cavity, as if the train conductor were a "pure meat product."
The inner cavity is slightly concave, and if the two halves of the body are put together, a cavity will be formed directly inside.
From the root of the cavity, which is the abdomen of the conductor's body, extends a huge, flat and thick strip of meat that is red with white, and covered with a layer of grains on one side.
This is...
Fei Shengxiao covered his mouth.
Wang Zhi vomited again.
Li Mian and Yang Leliu were stunned.
Xia Jing said slowly: "--The thing in the middle is the tongue?"
"That's right," Song Yang said in a deep voice, "As soon as Brother Sha and I attacked him, he became like this."
"Two halves of the body and that tongue, it looks like a complete mouth."
——The train conductor's entire monster form is actually a mouth!
But, but whose mouth is he speaking?
The rest of the people were completely stunned. They could only follow Xia Jing and the others' gaze and look at the conductor's legs.
Because the small window on the cab door was too narrow, they had not been able to notice the conductor's lower body before.
——This guy has no feet at all!
From where his ankles should be, his legs turned into two strips of flesh—no, they should be said to be two thick flesh tubes, and these two flesh tubes were respectively connected to the square metal pipes on the left and right walls of the cab.
Xia Jing said slowly, "After the prey enters the cab, it's swallowed by the 'conductor's' mouth and transported through his body to the right or left pipe. The pipe transports the 'food' all the way to the second carriage, which is the 'large intestine' area, and is finally excreted onto the open platform at the rear of the train."
Xia Jing's eyes showed a hint of interest: "This is a complete structure."
A bad premonition arose in everyone's heart.
They heard the young man say:
"No wonder even after killing the train conductor and the bugs, this instance can't be concluded."
"It turns out that the main monster in this dungeon is actually the train itself."
"We are inside the monster's body."
*
The train left the rainforest without looking back and headed back into the wilderness.
The train began to heal itself again.
Everything inside the carriage that belonged to the train itself - broken glass, giant insect slurry and corpses splashed everywhere, pipe fragments and corrosive fluid in the second carriage, all of these were disappearing rapidly.
Even the wounds on the conductor's body were being quickly healed, and his skin was gradually turning redder, which was a sign that he was slowly recovering.
Several people hurried out of the cab and closed the door.
The amount of information they needed to digest was too great, and they couldn't take care of the monster's resurrection for the time being.
Fei Shengxiao, Yang Leliu and Wang Zhi all looked pale and dazed.
Li Mian, Song Yang and Sha Yu ran to the second carriage before all traces disappeared.
After they entered the second carriage, they turned around and looked up—
Several bags of mulberry-shaped insect eggs hung from the two broken pipes embedded in the walls on both sides.
Xia Jing was the first person to come into contact with these giant insects and the only one who had captured the entire picture of the giant insects. According to him, when these giant insects grew big enough to attack An Ruming, part of their tails would still remain in the pipe.
At the end of the tails of these giant insects are eggs.
Their bodies had been completely destroyed by Xia Jing and his team, but the eggs on their tails broke in time.
The eggs were still connected to the square tube and were being slowly retracted.
This is naturally different from the structure of real roundworms, but the copy will maliciously tamper with some real elements, which is no longer surprising to players.
Xia Jing walked in slowly, his voice reaching the ears of several people: "The process of the train conductor selecting players is more like 'ordering food' for the main monster, the train."
The word "order food" made Sha Yu and Li Mian look a little ugly.
"The train consumed its chosen prey, and the nutrients were absorbed into its body through its 'intestines.' This gave it the strength to survive the ensuing disaster and ensure the survival of the rest of us."
Xia Jing revealed the twisted and disgusting truth in a calm tone.
"As for roundworms, they are connected to the 'intestines' themselves."
"If they digest the food immediately after swallowing it, any nutrients that are transported back to the 'intestines' and spread throughout the monster's body will achieve the same effect as if the train itself had consumed the food."
"Ye Xiang wasn't the player chosen by the train this round. The bugs were attracted by the smell of blood and attacked him, but they spit him out shortly after. He's dead, but there wasn't any corrosive liquid on him. Instead, he was purple, as if poisoned. Only after he fell out did he begin to be corroded by the corrosive liquid on the ground."
Xia Jing lowered his eyes and stomped on the ground. "So I guess only the chosen players can prompt the bugs to secrete corrosive fluid and complete the nutrient transfer process normally. This time, the one who played a role was An Ruming."
As soon as Xia Jing finished speaking, the train had completed its self-healing process.
All the dirt belonging to the train itself disappeared.
The pipes in the second car were just as twisted and gnarled, yet smooth and shiny, as they were at the beginning.
However, looking at this picture again with the truth in mind, Sha Yu and Li Mian felt only chills.
After confirming the situation, they immediately left the second carriage.
Song Yang turned around and wanted to leave, but when he raised his foot, he paused.
He looked down at his feet.
After the train has completed its self-repair, the corrosive fluid, dead insects, pipe fragments, and the residue formed after the corrosive fluid eroded them should have all disappeared.
The only things left in this train should be the players' bodies.
At this moment, there were some red and purple flesh-like objects under his feet, among which fragments of Ye Xiang's clothes could be vaguely seen.
Obviously, this is Ye Xiang's body, he was abandoned here by the giant insect.
However, there was always a question in Song Yang's mind.
He raised his head and took advantage of the fact that no one was around to calmly ask Xia Jing, who was also about to leave: "Are you really not hurt?"
Xia Jing stopped.
He didn't turn around, but just tilted his head and chuckled, "What do you mean?"
Asking despite knowing the answer.
Song Yang asked bluntly, "Didn't a single drop of that corrosive liquid splash onto you?"
When Song Yang came out of the cab, he found that in just over ten minutes, the young man not only failed to protect himself from the corrosive liquid, but was even made to look like a beggar by the corrosive liquid. At that time, he really felt a headache.
But Song Yang is not stupid either.
The clothes were corroded like this, but the liquid didn't touch the young man's skin at all. Is this really possible?
Song Yang didn't want Xia Jing to get hurt, but he felt that it was a little unreasonable.
This irrationality is just like the other peculiarities of this young man.
Song Yang admitted that he had an inexplicable caring mentality towards this strange young man. This mentality might come from the pleasure produced in his brain when his thoughts resonated with that of the young man, and the excitement in his heart when they secretly tested each other.
Dopamine is a magical substance.
Song Yang really enjoyed playing games with Xia Jing and also enjoyed communicating with him.
As for his concern for Xia Jing, it was purely a human instinct that arose after he began to pay attention to her.
——But this mentality does not affect his suspicion of this guy's identity and all the strange things about him.
He didn't yet regard Xia Jing as a friend like Jia Qing.
He still retained a sense of curiosity about this young man.
Song Yang stared at Xia Jing and asked, "Did you never expect Ye Xiang to retaliate against you?"
Xia Jing finally turned around and looked at him.
When the third round of disaster occurred, Song Yang noticed the little tricks Xia Jing made towards Wang Zhi.
As long as the situation is controllable, Song Yang never intends to interfere with anyone else's actions, but this young man is a calm madman who will do many crazy things to play games. Song Yang has fully realized this.
Did this guy really not anticipate everything that happened in the second carriage?
Didn't he deliberately guide her at all?
In the dim carriage, the two people kept a distance of two meters.
The remaining corpses and flesh on the ground continued to emit a foul stench.
A winding pipe surrounded the two people.
The slight rustling sound in the pipe indicated that the resurrected giant insect monsters had not yet completely calmed down from the thrill of the moment.
In silence, Xia Jing looked at Song Yang for a while and suddenly smiled.
He said, "Song Yang, it's really fun to play games with you."
Song Yang was stunned.
"But you've played so many games, you should already know this," the young man said, narrowing his eyes and smiling, "A copy will never tell you the answer on its own, because that would be too boring."
Song Yang responded quickly: "But you are not a copy."
"Who knows?" Xia Jing asked back.
"Explore the map, find clues, get answers, defeat monsters... and then, complete the level," Xia Jing raised his lip and said, "I've been doing the same thing to myself as completing a dungeon."
"I also welcome you to join this game."
Song Yang was stunned.
After the young man finished speaking, he left the carriage.
Song Yang was caught off guard and paused before following him out.
He watched the young man walk towards the others, his eyes gradually darkening.
He originally wanted to wait until this copy was over before finding a chance to "settle accounts" with this guy, but after this conversation, Song Yang felt that this matter would not be able to proceed smoothly.
This young man is as slippery as a loach.
Treat it like a dungeon game, explore and complete it?
Song Yang savored Xia Jing's words and narrowed his eyes.
After a long moment, he laughed.
have to.
He was led by the nose by this guy again.
But it sounds interesting.
Song Yang slowly exhaled.
Anyway, exploring this strange world is also exploring... what's the harm in exploring one more person?
This guy didn't seem to resist his approach.
Song Yang put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked over.
…
The train kept running forward without stopping.
According to previous experience, their rest time in this round will only be fifteen minutes in total, and now there are only five minutes left.
Fei Shengxiao swallowed hard, peered around nervously, and asked, "So... if we're inside the monster now... how do we kill it?"
She lowered her voice, as if afraid that the "monster" would hear their plan.
Yang Leliu also whispered, "Do we all need to climb out of the train and destroy it?"
Song Yang said, "No, this instance has a mechanism for reloading the save."
Several people were stunned. Li Mian frowned and asked, "Wait, isn't this mechanism aimed at us players?"
After all players die, the game will be reloaded and restarted. This is a mechanism formed to protect players. The train itself is not included, right?
If they all climb out of the train and destroy it, they should be able to complete the dungeon, right?
Song Yang shook his head and said, "The previous information was not sufficient. I think we must have misjudged the nature of this mechanism."
"This train has always been able to heal itself, no matter if it's damaged by us internally or impacted externally. Now, even the train conductor and the giant insect have been resurrected—"
The group turned around and looked quietly towards the cab.
Through the small window, the conductor's swaying golden hair could be vaguely seen.
Song Yang retracted his gaze: "-I think this is actually a signal from the copy."
"
The reload mechanism does indeed reduce the difficulty of the dungeon to three stars, but this mechanism is likely designed to protect the main monster, the train.
"We, the players, are merely the 'contents' of the train, and were resurrected incidentally."
"In other words," Song Yang paused and said, "even if we destroy the train, we can't kill the train monster."
The others looked stunned.
Sha Yu said in disbelief: "Then how can we kill this thing?!"
Fei Shengxiao's eyes widened. "We only have about ten chances to reload the game. Are we going to kill it ten times?!"
Xia Jing warned, "If simply hacking and slashing doesn't kill the train monster, then that means this isn't the true way to clear this dungeon. When all ten chances are used up, we might not be clearing the dungeon, but rather the dungeon's closure."
Song Yang nodded.
Closing the copy means failure to pass the level.
Upon hearing this, their expressions changed drastically.
They never expected that even at this point, they still had no idea how to kill the monster!
"I think we need to rethink the game mode of this instance," Song Yang suddenly said to Sha Yu, "Do you remember the number that was following us from above the train?"